Soccernomics and how it applies to fulham

[eloc]

I think the overall stats on a long run across a vast amount of clubs would show little impact by the manager. Not really surprising as the game is (happily) still run like a collection of clubs rather than real businesses, its hardly full of trained business professionals and the examples of local business owners taking over the board rooms and making total cock-ups is endless (Richards at Sheff Wed being a classic). In fact its run in the main by professional footballers who have spent their formative years on the field and you are lucky if they transition to actually be a trained FIFA coach let alone have any commercial nouse - I mean seriously, listen to them being interviewed week in, week out - how many would you let run a car wash let alone a multi million pound business? There is a transition happening where the money is now too high stakes and the business owners like Khan will have an impact by selecting people who can manage the various inputs: player talent, training and development of skills, development of tactics, match day dynamics ( selection, adjustment of tactics, subs), income, promotion, fan development and retention, ancillary revenue (stores, hospitality, sponsors), staff management and development...the list goes on. They will select teams of executives who will include former players but the days when SAF controls everything are gone.
The former players who are smart and develop themselves will prosper while those that don't will not and the role of the non former player football industry professionals will increase.
On a more micro level I think the b+w geezer points about the training field are spot on. Teams even in the premiership with all the money that is at stake do not train dramatically different than teams in the 2nd division. Jol's regime was marked by the piss-poor training. It never ceases to amaze me that some teams just do not do situational drills - Mourinho does, Hodgson did - its still skills, cones and corners at most training grounds each week and I wonder at Motspur whose great idea the short corners were....

i think youre spot on about the training, the point im trying to get to is that on the whole, most coaches/managers (i dont fully understand the difference in football) have little to no impact positively, but can very easily wreck a team. the worst thing a manager does in my opinion is the regime changes, both in player and staff. theres a lot to be said for having a stable coaching staff and squad. getting rid of a player or coach just because your predecessor brought him in is silly at best, artificially limiting yourself at worst.

[YoungsBitter]

Agree 100% about the whole sale chopping and changing being totally counter productive. In a well managed club Meulensteen would have only been coach, we woudl not brought on the two idiots Wilkins and Curbs and when Magath arrived he should have been manager to RM's coach but thats not what happened.
Most US professional sports split the coaching role from the (general) manager role, usually game/tactical vs strategic with the player recruitment being the coach saying I need more of X and the GM trading or recruiting to get more X. In football the Manager generally has a bunch of assistants called coaches and scouts and he calls the shots on both tactical and strategic hence my contention that the stats would show little long term correlation between managers and success as it is a rare beast that can get both right long term. I think we will see football at the high end move to the US model and that is present at many clubs with the Director of Football role altho that seems to be mainly long term strategic recruitment. I think the argument that anyone off the street could do a better job does not stack up tho, rather that we need to have better management processes in football to avoid the errors we have seen at Fulham. I agree that our recruitment under Jol was very poor and focused on over the hill and expensive names without an overall plan to integrate those into a younger developing squad, in fact like everything under Jol it was all a bit mickey mouse, not thought through and short term focused (partly due to Fayed needing to cash out and Ali Mac doing what he was told). If you throw in to the mix the issue of agents being tied to Managers then the recruitment gets even more skewed.
I hope Magath does stay as he at least seems to understand the work needing to be done on the training field but I dont see him as some golden bullet to solve all our problems, even if we do stay up. He has his blind spots - like leaving Diarra on 20 minutes longer than necesary, his tinkering with ever changing squad - and we have yet to see the wheeler dealer nature that made would have made Harry Redknap blush.

[Logicalman]

Welcome aboard eloc, great first post, and great discussion following.

I agree with all the points you make, but as deeffc pointed out, for a club like Fulham, the waiting game for a 'proven' youngster isn't really on, for the moment they are proven, they get snapped up by clubs with both a better reputation and deeper pockets, that are bound to turn the young heads. As you said yourself, Kroos, bench-warming for BM, as so many of those players will find themselves, or loaned out perhaps.
So, what do we do? We either buy players that are nearing or just past their sell-by date, or we chance the youngsters who are happy to stay at the Cottage. I agree neither of those two options include the likes of Bent or Berbatov, those were simply examples of a manager without a plan, believing that experience out classes everything else, without realizing that some players are just too far past the expiry date.

I see that Felix looked upon experience over youth for the Norwich game, and it worked (perhaps just, but we came away with the three points), though I still believe that unless/until you do start putting those youngsters, like Burn, in the starting 11, then their being proven is simply postponed rather than harvested in good time.

[b+w geezer]

fulham is one club out of many, and like you said they only represent 20-25% of the clubs history. its not you or i individually that the book and i am talking about, its the collective idea that is as good as or better than any other manager, save the few exceptions

Don't follow that at all, sorry.  Have read the above several times now and simply can't make sense of it.

To reiterate...if the book is suggesting that most managers/coaches of football teams are mediocre and don't make a difference, that's plausible. However, senior pro football by definition hires managers and coaches who, like the players themselves, are reckoned exceptional, and that is presumably the world that this book is actually discussing.

Within that world of what should uniformly be people who know what they are doing, the Fulham experience has been that some produce much better results than others at similar budget. I'm doubtful it's much different at other pro football clubs and so if the book does doubt that, I in turn am sceptical about that aspect of the book.

[eloc]

Welcome aboard eloc, great first post, and great discussion following.

I agree with all the points you make, but as deeffc pointed out, for a club like Fulham, the waiting game for a 'proven' youngster isn't really on, for the moment they are proven, they get snapped up by clubs with both a better reputation and deeper pockets, that are bound to turn the young heads. As you said yourself, Kroos, bench-warming for BM, as so many of those players will find themselves, or loaned out perhaps.
So, what do we do? We either buy players that are nearing or just past their sell-by date, or we chance the youngsters who are happy to stay at the Cottage. I agree neither of those two options include the likes of Bent or Berbatov, those were simply examples of a manager without a plan, believing that experience out classes everything else, without realizing that some players are just too far past the expiry date.

I see that Felix looked upon experience over youth for the Norwich game, and it worked (perhaps just, but we came away with the three points), though I still believe that unless/until you do start putting those youngsters, like Burn, in the starting 11, then their being proven is simply postponed rather than harvested in good time.

the trajectory of players is much harder to predict from an early point in a players career. and there are plenty of players who are young in other leagues that just need to be brought into a new team or system before they take off. my biggest concern, as well is as the books, is that bringing in very young (under 22) players is very very risky. look at the mvps of the younger world cups and see where they are, look at the older youth world cups and its a closer representation of actual ability.

[eloc]

fulham is one club out of many, and like you said they only represent 20-25% of the clubs history. its not you or i individually that the book and i am talking about, its the collective idea that is as good as or better than any other manager, save the few exceptions

Don't follow that at all, sorry.  Have read the above several times now and simply can't make sense of it.

To reiterate...if the book is suggesting that most managers/coaches of football teams are mediocre and don't make a difference, that's plausible. However, senior pro football by definition hires managers and coaches who, like the players themselves, are reckoned exceptional, and that is presumably the world that this book is actually discussing.

Within that world of what should uniformly be people who know what they are doing, the Fulham experience has been that some produce much better results than others at similar budget. I'm doubtful it's much different at other pro football clubs and so if the book does doubt that, I in turn am sceptical about that aspect of the book.

basically it boils down to the concept of averages. if you are playing in a fantasy football league youre doing the same job as other BPL managers, but without the paycheck. what im saying concerning managers is that if youre managing a team like Real or bayern, or city, its not hard to compete with teams around your wage level. a trained squirrel could do the same. we do the same when we discuss line-ups and tactics here on this board. it does however take a special person to push a team to excell.

[rogerpbackinMidEastUS]

Perhaps irrelevant, but comparing the manager/coach system in another business.
I'm GM of an events company, my job is to make sure the business runs as smoothly as possible, sales and marketing do their jobs, finances (including making sure everyone gets paid), HR and all other Depts are 'OK' and generally motivating everyone.
However it's the 'coaches' the Production Manager, Operations Manager and Warehouse Manager who make the operation tick, they work with the crews, schedule trucks, personnel, loading and unloading, shipping/receiving etc etc
I see my job as the "Manager' more as a father figure (or in my case a grandfather figure) and overseeing the company (eg Alistair McIntosh'ish')  The 'coaches' are the heads of department who do everything that is needed to get the actual live events 'done'
To a great degree I let them get on with it, even their own hiring and firing (I don't advocate that in a football environment)

The point of all of this (and there is one) is that many businesses are similar to mine.
There is no need for a manager to become too involved in the live events (the actual matches}
In a nutshell (my opinion)  coaches are more important than managers regarding on field tactics, selection and as long as they are supported by a good manager (me ???) results should be good.

[MasterHaynes]

Good post and good points.  I had never thought about the u-20 u-17 risks, but it makes sense.  Invest in slightly older players but still young.

This was the Keegan approach at Newcastle, scrapped the reserves and academies only running an enlarged first team squad intent on attracting and buying quality players. The project ended up with them getting relegated  after a number of managerial changes, reliant on spotting and buying good players . This worked OK last year for Newcastle but once players start to attract attention from other clubs it acts as a distraction to players and agents who start manouvering to leave the club for better contracts and form goes out the window as we can see with Newcastle in the 2nd half of this season.

[westcliff white]

According to those guidelines we should not have bought Smalling, Burn, or Murphy to name just three.

According to those guidelines we should not have bought Smalling, Burn, or Murphy to name just three.

YOu could then add Hangeland, Davies, Duff, Gera?, Zamora, Bullard?, Diairra, Reither etc to the list too

[NogoodBoyo]

I deemed the book flawed to the extreme.
The author's go to money player of all time was Darren Bent.  And more games are own or lost on luck?!?
Bent had some glorious money chances for us this season - and blew them.  As for luck?  Sorry , but I stopped reading the book at that juncture.  Any sportsman in any field will tell you "the harder I work, the luckier I get."
In my opinion, the theory that managers or coaches don't make a difference is so wrong-headed that it beggars belief.  Great managers and coaches might be very hard to find (as in the business world) but the difference between success and failure lies in the choice of a club's manager and coach.
Nogood "we should carry on searching for that Holy Grail too, isit" Boyo

[NogoodBoyo]

I was enjoying this thread.  Good subject, even if I didn't agree with some of the conclusions.
Nogood "thread-slayer, isit" Boyo

[NogoodBoyo]

Oh dear, and I'm regulated to the top of the page again.
Nogood "singin' 'top the page, top the page, top the page, isit" Boyo

[Putney]

Managing a fantasy football team doesn't make you a good coach nor does it even begin to give you an understanding of how teams in real life scheme.

If managers don't matter then why are Man Utd not going to qualify for the Champions League this year?

[eloc]

Good post and good points.  I had never thought about the u-20 u-17 risks, but it makes sense.  Invest in slightly older players but still young.

This was the Keegan approach at Newcastle, scrapped the reserves and academies only running an enlarged first team squad intent on attracting and buying quality players. The project ended up with them getting relegated  after a number of managerial changes, reliant on spotting and buying good players . This worked OK last year for Newcastle but once players start to attract attention from other clubs it acts as a distraction to players and agents who start manouvering to leave the club for better contracts and form goes out the window as we can see with Newcastle in the 2nd half of this season.

keegan at newcastle is an anomaly. im not saying the club should scrap a youth academy. but when looking for first team players, anyone under 22 is too young in my opinion and shouldnt be risked.

According to those guidelines we should not have bought Smalling, Burn, or Murphy to name just three.

According to those guidelines we should not have bought Smalling, Burn, or Murphy to name just three.

YOu could then add Hangeland, Davies, Duff, Gera?, Zamora, Bullard?, Diairra, Reither etc to the list too

i think youre missing the point...

I deemed the book flawed to the extreme.
The author's go to money player of all time was Darren Bent.  And more games are own or lost on luck?!?
Bent had some glorious money chances for us this season - and blew them.  As for luck?  Sorry , but I stopped reading the book at that juncture.  Any sportsman in any field will tell you "the harder I work, the luckier I get."
In my opinion, the theory that managers or coaches don't make a difference is so wrong-headed that it beggars belief.  Great managers and coaches might be very hard to find (as in the business world) but the difference between success and failure lies in the choice of a club's manager and coach.
Nogood "we should carry on searching for that Holy Grail too, isit" Boyo

which author? me or the actual book author? and managers dont make that great of a difference, in overall impact.

[crazycottager]

fantastic book to read, but doesn't really apply in this situation

[eloc]

Managing a fantasy football team doesn't make you a good coach nor does it even begin to give you an understanding of how teams in real life scheme.

If managers don't matter then why are Man Utd not going to qualify for the Champions League this year?

1. new manager, new coaches, new philosophy. moyes is having to deal with an entirely new team and integrate new coaches and old players into a new system. cherry picking one team doesnt make your point, it just makes you look ignorant.
2. the same reason barcelona are not in the lead, a stagnant older squad that is on the decline.
3. its SAF, mate. managers dont come better.

being a football player doesnt make you a better coach. my point in saying that is that if some bloke can hop on his computer and pluck eleven guys and put them into a line up, why do we pay someone to do the same? there was a team in the lower leagues that had all their season ticket holders submit a lineup before a match and they club plugged in the 11 most popular players. they ended up getting promotion the season they did it. they performed better than EVERY other club in their league, and every club had a manager/coach.

[NogoodBoyo]

What about all the other promoted clubs that used conventional managers and coaches?  If it's a numbers game as the authors' book implied, then that example of the one club in the one club is not even worthy of mention.
Nogood "no good, isit" Boyo

[b+w geezer]

If I ask you to recommend me a restaurant in your home city and you respond that most are of low quality, then I believe you but you have been of little use.

Similarly, it's not much help to pro football owners to tell them that managers make no difference in general; that only the best ones do. It's the best ones they want to hire!

That exceptional managers alone are exceptional, while indeed believeable, is as useful as that restaurant advice. Signs that would help you to spot an exceptional manager of the future, before rival owners snapped him up -- you'd want to read that.

[WayneKerrins]

When you say managers don't make a difference what powers are you linking to a manager?
If you're talking a baseball managers powers like Charlie Manuel when at the Phillies I'd agree. Tinkering with the line up, bull pen management, shift defense, matching right and lefties. Most knowledgeable fans could do that. The coaching is mostly skills coaching again most decent ex hitters/ pitchers could do that.

For football the Manager (in many clubs) is a combination of a baseball GM in that he selects the talent, plus he runs the training, and the bits by omission you really underplay are the man management aspect and the tactics (both planned and reactive). These are huge parts of football and light years away of bringing the 3 baseman up the line situationally to stymie a bunt or a suicide squeeze.

A good manager is worth 10 to 20pc of a season's points total (you'd have seen that if we had Jol and Felix doing a full season and comparing results) even if he had the same players...imagine what that would look like a baseball WAR stat. If you add in the influence most have on player acquisitions and exits I'd say 20 per cent to 33 per cent in the long run.

I infer that you may agree with the player acquisition/ exit impact but you, wrongly, don't link that to a manager's role. It's still a key part of most Manager's responsibilities especially in English professional football.

By 'you' I mean the book and your (supportive) representation of it.

[WayneKerrins]

Bit of a long and dry read but to précis it's a statistical analysis that concludes that there are patently good and bad managers who have a material impact on expected points per game of their team, respectively, positively and negatively.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21649480.2013.768829#/doi/full/10.1080/21649480.2012.751957